AIPEF demands withdrawal of Gold Shied to Yamuna Nagar power plant
21-Mar-2010
Vinod Kumar Gupta Mynews.in

Chandigarh: All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) in a letter to Prime Minister has demanded the withdrawal of Gold Shield to Yamuna Nagar Thermal Plant in the category of early commissioning of thermal plant for the year 2008-09.

Ministry of Power had awarded the Gold Shield for early commissioning of thermal plant for 2008-09 to the Yamuna Nagar thermal plant.

The EPC contract had been given by HPGCL to M/s Reliance AIPEF had earlier represented that as per May 18 2009 order of Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission this thermal plant was incomplete and not taken over by HPGCL as the performance guarantee test had not been performed. The HERC made several other comments regarding low PLF, high oil consumption etc.

Now the report of Comptroller & Auditor General for 2008-09 placed in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha contains extremely adverse comments and has indicted Yamuna NagarThermal Plant on account of delayed commissioning and consequential losses suffered by HPGCL.

As per CAG report there was a delay in commissioning of unit-1 by 382 days and a delay in commissioning of Unit-2 by 361 days. This caused a generation loss of 4297.68 million units leading to purchase of power at an extra cost of Rs 498.48 crores.

The report says that besides the performance Guarantee test of the various activities which should have been completed prior to contractual schedule dates were still pending due to which formal take over of project was held up.

Besides the delayed commissioning CAG report mentions various financial losses suffered by HPGCL These include excess payment of advance of Rs 2.57 crore due to inconsistency in terms of contract., loss of interest of Rs 4.66 crore on release of ad-hoc advance without any provision in the contract and non-recovery of liquidated damages of Rs 55.86 crore.

The CAG report states that as per contract with Reliance the Units would be accepted for commercial operation on completion of continuous satisfactory trial operation for 14 days andthe Performance Guarantee (PG) test.

The prolonged trial runs resulted in excess consumption of fuel valuing Rs 10 Shaliender Dubey Secretary General of AIPEF said that it can be concluded on the basis of CAG report that the award of Gold Shield for earlycommissioning to the DCRTPP for 2008-09 was totally unjustified and that the Govt. of India should withdraw this award.